The 2012 TV Upfronts

The pyrotechnics seemed an organic extension of the sizzling stats the network had offered. With the notable exception of NBC, which has little to gain by inviting close scrutiny of its ratings, most everyone this week is loudly spinning some numbers and flashily presenting a few graphs. (ABC, in an annual tradition of inventing new metrics, broke out a chart asserting that viewers of its hits buy more stuff than do fans of comparably rated shows on other network.) But Univision?s data proved impressive in the crispness of their presentation and in the market dominance they suggested. Univision claims a 73 percent share of Spanish-language television, and it airs 48 of the 50 shows most popular among bilingual Hispanics. Last year, among young adults, it beat NBC 195 nights in prime time. To illustrate this last fact?and the pitch that companies should achieve ?balance? by devoting 15 percent of their TV-ad budgets to the Spanish-speaking market?some stagehands wheeled out a prop seesaw laden with illuminated network logos, and a sales executive ordered the peacock to short out with fizzle. This was not necessarily the week?s cruelest joke at NBC?s expense, but it was the most memorable.

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